1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for processing information contained on microbeads, each microbead having an elongated body with a code embedded therein along a longitudinal axis thereof to be read by a code reading device; and more particularly to a method and apparatus for aligning the microbeads so the longitudinal axis thereof is in a fixed orientation relative to the code reading or other device.
This invention also relates to transporting beads, and more particularly to transporting microbeads from one location to another.
2. Description of Related Art
Many industries have a need for uniquely identifiable objects or for the ability to uniquely identify objects, for sorting, tracking, and/or identification/tagging. Existing technologies, such as bar codes, electronic microchips/transponders, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and fluorescence and other optical techniques, are often inadequate. For example, existing technologies may be too large for certain applications, may not provide enough different codes, or cannot withstand harsh temperature, chemical, nuclear and/or electromagnetic environments.
Therefore, it would be desirable to obtain a coding element or platform that provides the capability of providing many codes (e.g., greater than 1 million codes), that can be made very small and/or that can withstand harsh environments.
Moreover, it would be desirable to provide a method and apparatus to position and align such encoded elements so as to identify the code to determine information about the process or application to which it is related and/or to better sense the chemical content on the elements and correlate it in relation to such process or application.
It is also well known that microbeads or microparticles may be used for various types of multiplexed chemical experiments or assays or for identifying, authenticating or sorting items. One challenge in transporting microbeads is being able to move them reliably from one location to another reliably and/or being able to move a predetermined number of beads.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a reliable technique for transporting microbeads from one location to another.